Poor ‘invisible’ Pakistanis
I would like to express my gratitude to the Mission Fund for their donation of €3,500 for our mission here in Pakistan.
This money will go to our crises intervention fund.
These last two years have been more difficult than usual for vulnerable people in Pakistan. This is partly due to the fallout from the pandemic.
It is also due to recent, well-intentioned government policies that have, unfortunately, been enforced with a total disregard for the welfare of the most vulnerable in society.
Our work is to identify those who fall in this category, help them through their immediate crisis and encourage them to resume independent lives.
People like Younis, for example, a sickly man trying desperately to support his young family and unregistered at birth. This meant he could not apply for an identity card as an adult. Officially, he did not exist.
Until recently, that would have been a minor inconvenience. Now, new rules required an identity card for every service. Younis could not even get his children into school because they were as invisible as he was officially.
The process to get him properly registered was long, expensive and fraught with red tape, totally beyond what Younis could do on his own. Our social worker had to search through a labyrinth of offices as he tried to solve this bureaucratic nightmare.
Younis died suddenly before the work could be completed but, in a few more months, hopefully, his children can be officially registered.
They, at least, will not be invisible persons.
This is one story of many.
Please, go on helping Mission Fund to support our work. You can do this by sending used stamps and donations. You can also donate online or by direct bank transfer to one of the following accounts: BOV: IBAN no.: MT70VALL220130000000 16300798022; APS: IBAN no.: MT67APSB77079005231820000 820762; BNF: IBAN no.: MT94BNIF1450200000000087963101 and LOM: IBAN no.: MT65LBMA05000000000001440822115.
God bless you all.
Fr Pierre Bonnici, MSSP – Lahore, Pakistan
Gozo – past, present and future
Photo: Shutterstock.comI agree with Revel Barker’s argument, in ‘Yes, I remember ‘Gozo’’ (November 22), that Gozo has gone and is still going through a disastrous process of uglification.
May the powers that be, as well as the Gozitans themselves, recognise that the so-called ‘progress’ has congested our natural environment beyond saturation point. However, hinting that Gozo is “more like the place visitors want to escape from” – a comment, unfortunately, highlighted in the article – is going too far.
Our dear island has still a lot to offer to all those who have unblinkered eyes to observe and hearts uncontaminated with some grudge or some sort of fanaticism. To give just one example, there are still, each year, a hundred sunsets to enjoy from our Dwejra, Ta’ Ċenċ and Xlendi and from the hilltops of our island, as the one shown here in the picture.
Please, Mr Barker, keep your comments regarding Gozo in their true perspective, even though I understand your rage and lament when revelling in your barking.
Otherwise, your words will be a contribution to the cause which you so rightly condemn, for if all the charms of Gozo have been lost, no well-written articles in the Times of Malta will redeem them. Maintaining that Gozo seems like “a place visitors want to escape from” may bring about a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Let us not belittle the various unique attractions that remain, jealously defend them and nurture a hope that visitors will still be attracted by them.
JOSEPH PSAILA – Victoria
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